Table of Contents
- Coursera and the skill development of Indian learners
- Democratizing access to education
- Enhancing employability and professional skills
- Supporting lifelong learning
- Addressing skill gaps and industry needs
- Encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship
- Global skill ranking
- Top Asian countries
- Country on spotlight: India
- Skill proficiency levels in India across states and UTs
- Strategies to improve Indian learners skill proficiency
- References
Coursera and the skill development of Indian learners
In the age of digital learning, platforms like Coursera have revolutionized education by providing access to courses across diverse domains from top universities and institutions worldwide. For Indian learners, Coursera has emerged as a valuable resource for acquiring new skills, enhancing existing ones, and staying competitive in a rapidly evolving job market. Coursera’s impact on skill development among Indian learners is multifaceted, influencing personal growth, professional development, and the broader educational landscape in India. For instance, we have seen learners from rural areas of India, who previously had limited access to quality education, now gaining skills and knowledge through Coursera and securing high-paying jobs in the tech industry.
Democratizing access to education
One of Coursera’s most significant contributions to Indian learners is the democratization of education. Traditional barriers such as geographical constraints, high tuition fees, and limited access to quality education are significantly reduced through online platforms. Coursera offers various courses in various fields, including technology, business, health, and humanities, making high-quality education accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Moreover, Coursera actively promotes inclusivity and diversity in its course offerings, ensuring that learners from all backgrounds and regions of India can find courses that cater to their interests and needs.
This empowerment is crucial in India, where educational resources can be unevenly distributed across urban and rural areas. By providing learners with the opportunity to study courses from prestigious universities like Stanford, MIT, and the University of London, Coursera helps bridge the educational divide and instils a sense of capability and confidence in individuals from diverse backgrounds to pursue their learning goals.
Enhancing employability and professional skills
The Indian job market is characterized by intense competition and rapid technological advancements. Continuous learning and skill enhancement are pivotal for career advancement in such an environment. Coursera’s focus on job-relevant skills and its collaboration with industry leaders to design specialized courses and certification programs cater directly to this need. For instance, Coursera offers courses in cutting-edge fields like data science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital marketing. These wide ranges of courses are designed to furnish theoretical knowledge and practical skills that are immediately applicable in the workplace. Upon successful completion of these courses, learners receive certificates from Coursera, which are recognized by employers worldwide and add significant value to the resumes of Indian learners, improving their employability and opening up new career opportunities. The process of course completion and certification on Coursera involves rigorous assessments and evaluations to ensure the quality and credibility of the certificates.
Supporting lifelong learning
The concept of lifelong learning is gaining prominence, and Coursera plays a pivotal role in promoting this culture among Indian learners. With the rapidly changing technological landscape, professionals must constantly update their skills to remain relevant. Coursera’s flexible learning options, including self-paced courses and micro-credentials, enable learners to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills without disrupting their professional and personal lives. Coursera also offers a wide range of professional development courses and resources, such as career services and networking opportunities, to support learners in their career advancement and continuous learning journey. For example, working professionals in India can enrol in Coursera’s online courses to learn new programming languages, management techniques, or soft skills such as communication and leadership. This continuous learning helps them stay competitive and adaptable in their careers. Coursera recognizes the importance of soft skills in today’s job market and offers a variety of courses to help learners develop these skills, such as “Effective Communication in the Workplace’ and ‘Leadership and Influence”.
Addressing skill gaps and industry needs
India’s extensive educational system often faces criticism for not aligning closely with industry needs. Coursera addresses this gap by offering courses designed in collaboration with industry experts. This process involves regular consultations and feedback from these experts, ensuring the skills taught are relevant and current to current market demands. The courses are also regularly updated to reflect the latest industry trends and technologies. For instance, the rise of the IT industry in India has created a high demand for professionals with extensive skills in data analytics, machine learning, and cloud computing. Coursera’s partnerships with tech giants like Google, IBM, and Microsoft result in courses that provide learners with the specific skills needed in these high-growth areas. This alignment with industry needs not only benefits individual learners but also assures them of the practicality and relevance of the skills they acquire, supporting the country’s broader economic development.
Encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship
Beyond traditional employment, Coursera also plays a pivotal role in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship among Indian learners. Courses related to entrepreneurship, innovation management, and business strategy give aspiring entrepreneurs the knowledge and skills to start and grow their businesses. This is particularly inspiring and motivating in a country like India, where the startup ecosystem is burgeoning, and there is a strong push towards self-employment and innovation. Programs like the “Entrepreneurship” specialization, offered by the University of Pennsylvania, equip learners with practical insights into starting a business, securing funding, and scaling operations. Such courses empower Indian learners to transform innovative ideas into viable businesses, contributing to economic growth and job creation.
Coursera has become a transformative force in the education and skill development landscape for Indian learners. By providing accessible, flexible, and high-quality learning opportunities, Coursera helps individuals enhance their employability, support lifelong learning, address skill gaps, and foster innovation. As India continues to progress as a global economic powerhouse, platforms like Coursera will be increasingly critical in equipping its workforce with relevant skills. Through continuous learning and skill development, Indian learners should advance their careers and contribute to the nation’s broader socio-economic progress.
Coursera analyzes skills based on data from Coursera’s 124 million registered learners across 100 countries. While learner skills tend to reflect positive economic trends, it’s important to remember this data only represents those who actively use Coursera. Economic conditions and Coursera’s partnerships can also impact the data. For instance, recessions might lead to more people using Coursera, and partnerships might bring large groups of new learners. Through this analysis, Coursera’s goal is to give an objective picture of what’s happening within Coursera. While some results might reflect broader economic trends, others may not represent entire populations due to the specific demographics of Coursera users. Despite these limitations, sharing these insights can provide valuable details and complement traditional educational data sources. To rank countries by skill proficiency, Coursera first assess each learner’s skills and then calculates country averages. Finally, Coursera compares these averages using percentiles. A country at 100% is ranked highest among the 100 countries, while 0% is the lowest.
Coursera builds a comprehensive skills taxonomy for business, technology, and data science by combining publicly available resources like Wikipedia with input from educators and learners on the platform. This structured classification organizes skills within these domains, ranging from broad categories (Level 1) like “business” or “technology” down to specific abilities (Level 3) like “linear algebra.” Level 2, competencies, serves as the primary focus for measuring learner proficiency in the Global Skills Report. Notably, Level 3 skills, the building blocks of many competencies, can appear across multiple domains, with “linear algebra” being relevant to both technology and data science.
Global skill ranking
Fig: 1
A comprehensive analysis of proficiency levels across 100 countries revealed distinct patterns. Europe and select parts of the Asia Pacific region, including Hong Kong and Singapore, showcased cutting-edge proficiency levels, ranging from 75% to 100%. Meanwhile, Europe and Latin America, alongside countries like South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Botswana, demonstrated competitive proficiency levels, spanning from 50% to 75%. Countries primarily situated in Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa fell within the limited proficiency range of 25% to 50%. Furthermore, regions primarily comprising Asia Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, North America, and Sub-Saharan Africa exhibited lagging proficiency levels, ranging from 0% to 25%. Worldwide there are nearly 124 million Coursera users, with a median age of 33. Worldwide, Coursera boasts a mobile-driven user base with 48% learning on their phones. The platform is experiencing significant growth in professional certificate enrollment, currently at 46% and rising. However, only 75% of users have internet access. Interestingly, women make up 43% of Coursera’s Indian user base (fig: 1).
Top Asian countries
Fig: 2
Japan and Indonesia stand out as the top two countries in the Asia Pacific Coursera rank. Singapore, despite its small size, holds a significant position in the rankings, coming in at 16 globally and 3rd in the Asia Pacific region. East Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, and China feature prominently in the top ranks, suggesting a strong inclination towards embracing online education as a supplement to traditional learning methods. Countries like Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan are noteworthy for their relatively high rankings. India, despite being a significant player in the global education sector, ranks 13th in the Asia Pacific region. This suggests potential for further growth and adoption of online learning within the country. Countries with lower rankings, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, have room for development in terms of online education infrastructure and participation (fig: 2).
Country on spotlight: India
Fig: 3
India has the second-largest Coursera user base globally, trailing only the United States. But similar to the U.S., this translates to uneven skill distribution across the country. There’s a strong interest in Professional Certificates, with a whopping 96% of Indian students believing they’ll aid in landing their dream job. India has nearly 19 million Coursera users, with a median age of 29. The country ranks 60th globally on the platform. In India, Coursera boasts a mobile-driven user base with 59% learning on their phones. The platform is experiencing significant growth in professional certificate enrollment, currently at 38% and rising. However, with only 49% of users having internet access, there’s room for improvement in accessibility. Interestingly, women make up 39% of Coursera’s Indian user base (fig: 3).
What are the major skills in which Indians have a high proficiency level?
Fig: 4
However, Indian learners showcase impressive proficiency levels in business skills, excelling in areas such as communication (76%) and human resources (88%). Moreover, in technology, they demonstrate notable proficiency in mobile development (84%) and remain competitive in theoretical computer science (68%), web development (54%), software engineering (51%), and cloud computing (73%). Despite these strengths, there is a clear opportunity for improvement in data science (fig: 4).
Fig: 5
To identify the skills that learners in specific countries or job groups are particularly interested in, we examine skills that show an over-indexing trend based on enrollment numbers. While popular skills provide a general overview of interests, over-indexing skills highlight those that are disproportionately favoured within a specific group. For instance, Indian learners exhibit a heightened interest in AI-related skills compared to learners from other countries, showing a preference for artificial neural networks (1.15x), applied machine learning (1.2x), and machine learning algorithms (1.2x). Similarly, in the business realm, learners show a distinct inclination towards courses focusing on data visualization software (1.59x), blockchain (1.58x), and supply chain systems (1.55x) (fig: 5).
Fig: 6
West Bengal emerges as the leading state in terms of skill proficiency. Furthermore, learners from Punjab and Chandigarh from North India, and Andhra Pradesh from South India have also shown high skill proficiency levels. Maharashtra also shone in skill proficiency from the western part of India. However, there’s room for improvement in states like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and Assam. Kerala which has one of India’s highest literacy rates is suffering in the domain of data science-related skill proficiency levels. In the domain of technology and Business, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have the lowest level of skill proficiency levels (fig: 6 & fig: 7).
Skill proficiency levels in India across states and UTs
Fig: 8
In the domain of data science, West Bengal continues to lead, showcasing robust proficiency across the board. Chandigarh and Punjab also demonstrate strong performances in this domain. However, the need for improvement is stark in states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh, where data science skills could be much better. Among the top-performing states, specific areas of deficiency emerge once again. Learners from West Bengal, despite their dominance, need to gain proficiency in Software Engineering, a critical component of data science. Chandigarh’s learners need to improve in Data Visualization, a key skill for interpreting and presenting data effectively. Meanwhile, Punjab’s learners show weaknesses in both Software Engineering and Data Visualization, indicating broader challenges within the data science domain in this state (fig: 10).
Strategies to improve Indian learners skill proficiency
India, with one of the largest user bases on Coursera, has the potential to excel. However, its proficiency rank at 60 indicates a significant gap in skill levels compared to other countries. Despite these challenges, Indian learners have shown resilience and a strong desire to improve their skills. Various factors contribute to this proficiency gap, including limited internet access, a high reliance on mobile devices for learning, a notable gender gap, and significant regional disparities. Addressing these issues is crucial for unlocking the full potential of Indian learners and improving skill proficiency across the nation.
The primary challenge of limited internet access in India significantly hampers learners’ engagement with online courses. Despite recent increases in internet penetration, many rural and remote areas still lack reliable connectivity. This inconsistency in internet access directly affects the effectiveness of online learning. Urgent investment in digital infrastructure, such as expanding broadband services and improving internet speed and reliability, is necessary to ensure more learners can access online educational resources.
The reliance on mobile devices for learning is another significant challenge. Most Indian learners use mobile phones instead of computers or laptops, which are more suitable for engaging with complex course materials. With their smaller screens and limited functionality, mobile devices can impede the learning experience, particularly for courses requiring extensive reading, coding, or data analysis. To address this, initiatives to provide affordable computers and laptops, especially to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, can be beneficial. Optimizing online course platforms for mobile use can improve accessibility and learning outcomes.
The gender gap in online learning is also a pressing concern. Only 38% of learners on Coursera in India are women, reflecting broader societal inequalities that restrict educational opportunities for women. To bridge this gap, targeted outreach and support programs are needed. Scholarships and financial aid specifically for female learners, mentorship programs, and campaigns promoting the importance of women’s education in technology, business, and data science can help increase female participation and success in these fields.
Regional disparities in skill proficiency further complicate the educational landscape in India. The distribution of skills is uneven, with some states performing significantly better than others. To reduce these disparities, localized educational initiatives tailored to the specific needs of different regions are essential. In partnership with educational platforms, state governments can develop region-specific curricula and training programs that address local industry demands and skill gaps.
In addition to these measures, fostering a culture of lifelong learning is vital. Encouraging continuous skill development through regular upskilling and reskilling programs can help Indian learners stay competitive in a rapidly changing job market. Online platforms like Coursera can play a crucial role by providing accessible, high-quality courses and certifications recognized by industries worldwide. These initiatives, combined with the proposed solutions, hold the promise of a brighter future for Indian learners, where they can overcome the current challenges and thrive in the global economy.
In conclusion, while Indian learners face several challenges in improving their skill proficiency, targeted solutions can effectively address these issues. Improving internet access, providing affordable learning devices, bridging the gender gap, enhancing proficiency in key subdomains, and addressing regional disparities are critical steps towards creating a more skilled and competitive workforce in India. By leveraging the resources available through online platforms like Coursera and implementing these solutions, India can significantly improve its skill proficiency levels and better prepare its learners for the demands of the global economy.
References
- Regional Skills Report 2023: Europe | Coursera for Business. (n.d.). Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/business/resources/ebook/global-skills-report-regional-europe
- Leighton, M. (2020, September 1). Everything you need to know about Coursera, an online learning platform that offers over 3,000 classes from some of the world’s best universities | Business Insider India. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.in/insider-picks/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-coursera-an-online-learning-platform-that-offers-over-3000-classes-from-some-of-the-worlds-best-universities/articleshow/77880916.cms
- Ayoub, A., Amin, R., & Wani, Z. A. (2020). Contribution of developed countries towards MOOCs: an exploration and assessment from a representative platform Coursera. Asian Association of Open Universities Journal, 15(2), 251-262.
- Srivastava, A. K. (2017). Skill Development through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s): Role of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Institutions. Indian Journal of Human Relations, 51(2), 184-193.
About Author: Pankaj Chowdhury is a former Research Assistant at the International Economic Association. He holds a Master’s degree in Demography & Biostatistics from the International Institute for Population Sciences and a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics from Visva-Bharati University. His primary research interests focus on exploring new dimensions of in computational social science and digital demography.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of 360 Analytika.
Acknowledgement: The author extends his gratitude to the Coursera for providing data support.
This article is posted by Sahil Shekh, Editor at 360 Analytika.